qeltar

Whether the reaction is rational or not, it is entirely predictable. People don't like feeling left out, and there are years of history to show how people respond to missing out on limited-time or "had to have been there" items. What is unbelievable to me is that Jagex would do something like this and not know the response it would elicit. But then, that does seem to be a pattern of late. It's also amazing that a company this large, with this much money, can turn an event like this into such a PR disaster. And in so many different ways! Truly a spectacle to behold. Cut them some slack, this is the first official rs event. There are bound to be some mistakes. Hey, I don't care, it's not *my* foot they keep shooting. I find it really bizarre, that's all. I can't think of another company that so badly misunderstands its own customers, yet steadfastly refuses to ever conduct market research before springing boneheaded plans on everyone. They do it month after month, and still the sheeple bleat, so I guess they figure it's easier than actually expending the energy to do things that make sense. At the rate they're going, this should be renamed ClusterFest 2010.

Whether the reaction is rational or not, it is entirely predictable. People don't like feeling left out, and there are years of history to show how people respond to missing out on limited-time or "had to have been there" items. What is unbelievable to me is that Jagex would do something like this and not know the response it would elicit. But then, that does seem to be a pattern of late. It's also amazing that a company this large, with this much money, can turn an event like this into such a PR disaster. And in so many different ways! Truly a spectacle to behold.

Pouches and shards are no longer required. Try it. ;)

I have to "congratulate" Jagex's PR department for turning something that could have been a giant boon to Jagex's public image, and turning it into a divisive fiasco that will leave most of their customers feeling left out and unhappy. I'm sure this will make a great B-school case study some day.

Well, just this morning I did a level and only got a 9% level bonus instead of 10%. I did hunt two mastyx on this level. It's more likely that I missed a monster or two somewhere than that the mastyx had anything to do with it, but thought I'd throw that out there.

1) How are the monster difficulties calculated? If I'm level 137 and they are level 50, will we get really hard monsters based on my level or really easy ones based on theirs? It will take both of your levels into account if you play on 2:2 difficulty. If you play on 2:1, the monsters will be based on only the level 50. But if you do that, you will both take a massive 'unbalanced team' XP penalty. 2) How is the XP calculated? I'm assuming that I'm going to be doing most (or maybe all) of the fighting. Will my partner get any dungeoneering XP out of the level at all, or does everyone on the team get the same XP? You get XP based on the level and on your prestige. Who does what in the level doesn't matter. 3) I noticed that at the end of a floor, when your score is being tallied, there is a list of accomplishments of the right side of the screen (most melee damage, most deaths, etc). Does this have any impact on your score? No. 4) Will either of us lose out in this arrangement? Would one of us actually get better XP if we went solo instead? You will generally get more XP doing teams than solo. Most people also think it is more fun. The lower level player generally will gain more from the arrangement. One possible gotcha to watch out for is that you will often have to make armor for the lower player, as the stuff in the starting room will probably be katagon.

Find a friend with high skills, duo and have him/her make you a promethium spear (p++).

I've never seen any evidence to suggest this. It certainly has no effect on the multipliers, and doesn't appear to change the base XP either. Sounds like a baseless rumor to me.

Many of the activities appear to be geared towards kids, yet the age limits and high cost mean that they won't be much in attendance. So the target audience for this thing appears to be... really immature adults who like wasting money? I guess I should go then. :)

Because it is one area where the company is very generous. It's something F2Pers should be quite grateful for. Yes, of course you do. Suggestions and requests are great. But you should also understand that when you get something for free and then *complain* about it, or make *demands*, you appear ungrateful. No, I'm saying that just because a lot of people do something (play, eat, whatever) that doesn't mean it's good. Often, it just means it is cheap. It has nothing to do with "elitism" -- what's "elite" about coughing up 20 cents a day for a videogame? It has to do with people who are paying for something rightly expecting to have much more of a right to make demands than those who do not. And annoyance at free players looking the proverbial gift horse in the mouth.

People on this forum who think the RSOF is so bad should take a look around at some of what goes on here routinely before throwing stones.

What Jagex says is the reason for something isn't necessarily the whole reason. The general goal of the free version of something is to let you try it out, and hopefully get you to like it so you want to pay to get the subscription version. Part of that is putting little annoyances and inconveniences in the free version. This is done all the time in software: nag notices, watermarks, delays on download screens, etc. What's up with what? You're getting something for free. You have no right to complain about anything. Of course they do! Are you kidding? Since when do the customers who pay for a service not have the right to influence the nature of that service? Oh, of course. And by that standard, McDonald's is fine cuisine. :rolleyes:

"Original poster" -- just meant I wasn't shooting the messenger.

Nice press release. (Not intended as a slam at the OP.) Too bad much of what's in it is either completely false or extremely misleading.

They aren't inconsistent positions. Try actually thinking about it before going on the attack. The primary impact of this is not really to speed up XP, but rather to remove much of the point of herb seed drops and to make potions to easy to get. All other resources have much higher costs, such as ores or logs or plant fibers, so why are these so cheap?

I think the seed update is overpowered. They should be available so players can get around locked doors and so forth, but right now they are so cheap that, as someone said, you can just "super melee the entire dungeon". They make things too easy, IMO.

Herb seeds in the smuggler shop is a smart idea, but I hope they are VERY expensive. There should be an incentive for those who bother to pick them up. Streamlining Summoning was smart, since before, most of the obelisks were pretty useless. Also makes it cheaper, and familiars were already very useful in Dun. EDIT: Herb seeds are very cheap. I guess they are trying to give players who can't get through doors a break.

As I said, there are valid reasons to dislike the US. Just like there are valid reasons to dislike many countries. But much of the America bashing is simply a result of ignorance, jealousy and insecurity on the part of the citizens of other countries. I see it first-hand on a regular basis. And yes, I think what I posted was a lot more intelligent than the drooling idiocy that was provided in response to it.

Ah yes, this is the brilliant insight that I have come to expect on the Tip.it forums. Thanks so much for your worthy contribution to an intelligent discussion.

I always find it amusing that Ameriphobes from other countries seem to think that people in the US are desperately wringing their hands over the fact that you dislike us. And it's the worst coming from other English-speaking countries, especially Canada and Australia. I was born in Canada and moved to the US and became a naturalized citizen. There are plenty of problems here and things that I hate, but I felt the same way about Canada when I lived there. When I was in Canada I was part of the pervasive myth culture there about what the US is like. And then I moved here and found out that most of it was [cabbage]: no, we aren't all 400-pound rednecks with teeth pointing in all directions riding sows with a shotgun in one hand and a bag of pork rinds in the other. The constant hatred expressed towards the US by people in countries like Canada and Australia remind me more of a desire to differentiate themselves or knock the big guy off his pedestal than anything else. Canadians, in particular -- likely because of the close geographical proximity to the US -- seem to feel the need to put the US down constantly in order to make themselves feel different and superior. Not all of them of course, but a suprising number. The truth is that where you live within a country has a lot more to do with who you are and what you are like than which country you're in. People living in Toronto have a lot more in common with people living in New York City than they do with people living in rural Manitoba. And as for me, living in Vermont, I would be far more comfortable moving to a small town in rural Nova Scotia than I would being forced to live in Washington DC or Chicago.

First... relax. It's not as bad as you think. You've been given some pretty good advice already. You do not need a team to train Dun. Yes you can get more XP, but most of the XP rates people toss around are bogus, and don't take into account all of the overhead associated with teams. Regardless, you are best off learning the skill playing solo. You do not need high skills to play solo. There will occasionally be a door you can't open or a puzzle you can't do, but you can skip it. The quality of resources and the relationship of resources to skills is much better done here than in RS. For example, a tier 9 fish is better than a tier 8 fish. You need tier 8 Fishing (level 70) to catch a tier 8 fish, and tier 8 Cooking (level 70) to cook it. And so on -- it's pretty consistent. Start out by binding a decent weapon, the best you can get for your level. When you play on complexity 1 you'll start out with weapons and armor, and you can bind a weapon and some ammo to get started. Once you've played all 6 complexities, from then on always play on complexity 6. Follow these approximate steps: 1. In the starting room, pick up everything on the tables. Equip anything that is level appropriate that you don't already have, and sell the remaining equipment to the smuggler. Buy a pickaxe, hatchet, tinderbox, hammer and knife. 2. Look for keys on the ground and pick them up first. There will always be a path you can follow to get to the boss. 3. Explore as much of the floor as you can. 4. Save all fish, herbs and herb seeds. Save them in the smuggler's room -- other than burnt fish, nothing disappears. 5. When you find the boss, don't enter until you've explored the rest of the dungeon. 6. Get ready for the boss by making level-appropriate melee, ranged or magic gear. The RS wiki is currently the best source of information on boss weaknesses (at least until my ultimate guide is done ;) ). If you run into trouble with a specific boss, you can ask for advice here. 7. You can't leave the boss room once combat begins, but you can use the gatestone spell. Cast it to make a gatestone and drop it in the starting room, then tele to it if you run out of food. (The exception being the gluttonous behemoth, which will heal itself up.) 8. Beasts of burden are very handy to carry extra food into the boss room. 9. Alching items gives you double the gp if you need to buy supplies. Charms are the best thing to alch, oddly enough.

Glad they aren't trying to make a profit, but I think they missed the point. Most companies that do something like this have it as a goal to reward or say thanks to their customers. They should be aiming to *lose* money with this event -- they'd get a lot more PR value than whatever it cost them out of pocket. There's a lot of goodwill lost in a company that makes millions in profit year after year charging over a hundred bucks to teenagers and college students. Not a smart move, IMO.

They're sending a very odd message by making this so expensive. It really is going to color how people look at the entire event, IMO.

You keep posting more obnoxious insults, yet unsurprisingly, they aren't making this rant any less pointless. This is like complaining that after driving a Ferarri for a year, it's "uncomfortable" to have to go back to riding the city bus. Is that really a big surprise? And would it be smart business on Jagex's part to make it so you *didn't* feel compelled to keep membership?

BTW, just a warning about incomplete floors. It seems that if you don't complete a floor you get partial XP but NO TOKENS. I am hoping this is an oversight, since it was never spelled out, and they've always been pretty clear on the XP-token 10-1 relationship.